A Return to Salem’s Lot *** (1987, Michael Moriarty, Samuel Fuller, Ricky Addison Reed) – Classic Movie Review 8297

Co-writer/ director Larry Cohen’s 1987 horror movie A Return to Salem’s Lot is a lively, offbeat, low-budget chiller spun off very loosely from the Stephen King novel Salem’s Lot and 1979 mini-series film Salem’s Lot.

Michael Moriarty stars as scientist/ anthropologist Joe Weber (Moriarty) who battles with the local vampires with his young lad Jeremy (Ricky Addison Reed) when they inherit a cottage in the New England small town of Salem’s Lot in Maine.

Cohen has an impressive armoury of shocks, suspense and dark humour to drive it along, he finds space for esteemed old-time movie stars Evelyn Keyes (as Mrs Axel) and June Havoc (as Aunt Clara), and he fills it with some irresistibly weird ideas, such as casting film director Sam Fuller as a Nazi vampire-killer called Dr Van Meer. There is also a strong score by Michael Minard and another irresistible performance from Moriarty, with the rest of the cast good too.

It also features Andrew Duggan, Evelyn Keyes, Jill Gatsby, June Havoc, Ronee Blakley, James Dixon, David Holbrook, Katja Crosby, Tara Reid, Brad Rijn, Robert Burr, Jacqueline Britton, Janelle Webb and Gordon Ramsey.

The story is by Larry Cohen, and the screenplay is by Larry Cohen and James Dixon.

RIP Larry Cohen (July 15, 1941 – March 23, 2019), best known for It’s Alive (1974), God Told Me To (1976), It’s Alive II [It Lives Again] (1978), The Stuff (1985) and It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive (1987) and his screenwriting works Phone Booth (2002), Cellular (2004) and Captivity (2007).

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8297

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